Parties that execute documents as part of a transaction have historically sought out notary publics to verify the identity of the party signing a document and witness the signing of that document. This notarization of documents is traditionally performed on printed documents by a live notary public in the presence of the signatory. The inconvenience of seeking out a notary public to verify the identity and witness the signature of signatories to a document has led to remote notarization.
Remote notarization systems generally take two forms. First, remote notarization systems may employ document repositories to allow remote parties to a transaction to upload static copies of a document, which a signatory downloads and signs in the presence of a notary. Other remote notarization systems allow a notary public to verify the identity of a signatory and witness the signatory's signature across a network connection, such as the internet.
Remote notarization systems using document repositories may allow for negotiation of terms within a document and uploading of subsequent revisions agreed to by all the parties to the document. However, the terms of the document may not be changed once the document is finalized and approved for notarization. Therefore a signatory who seeks a change in the terms of the document at the time of notarization will not be allowed to negotiate and effect a change to the document. The remote notarization systems usually require a finalized version locked for notarization prior to the signatory's arrival at the notary.
Remote notarization systems enabling notaries to verify identity and witness signatures remote from the signatory may allow for ease of notarization, but require a finalized document agreed to by the parties to effect a notarization. Usually these documents are provided at the time of notarization by the signatory signing the document.
Common to these systems is the requirement that the notarization be performed on a static document to which the parties have previously agreed and finalized well in advance of notarization. Additionally, these notarization systems require an active network connection at the time of the notarization, in order for the notary to perform the notarization. These notarizations systems therefore limit the location in which notarization may occur to those areas with active network connections. These notarization systems also limit the ability to effect changes to the document where a notary may be empowered to negotiate with the signatory to the document.
Therefore, a need exists for an electronic notarization service which may accept changes to the document to be notarized at the time of notarization. A need also exists for an electronic notarization system which allows for notarization of documents in absence of the means to render the document to a print version. Further a need exists for an electronic notarization system capable of notarizing a document in absence of an active network connection.